Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick prepares to appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights regarding the SNC Lavalin affair, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, March 6, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang ORG XMIT: JDT120

After many hours of testimony Wednesday, first by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s best friend and his former principal secretary Gerald Butts and the clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, one question really stood out.

One hour into the afternoon testimony of Wernick before the Commons justice committee looking into the SNC-Lavalin scandal, Conservative MP Pierre Poillievre asked a series of questions that caught the clerk in a past untruth that appeared designed to pressure and manipulate the former attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould.

“In your presence, the prime minister told the attorney general that if there is no deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) that SNC will move from Montreal. Did he know at the time that a financing agreement with Caisse de Depot made it impossible for SNC to move its headquarters from Montreal before the year 2024?” asked Poillievre.

Wernick said that was not his recollection.

Poillievre also asked about a Dec. 19, 2018, phone call between Wernick and Wilson-Raybould. She testified that Wernick delivered “veiled threats” that she’d be pushed out of her portfolio as justice minister and attorney general if she didn’t cave to the prime minister’s pressure to offer SNC a deferred prosecution, rather than proceeding with a criminal trial revolving around bribery and corruption charges of SNC for its actions between 2001 and 2011 in Libya.

Wernick testified that SNC’s plans to move its headquarters and cut jobs was a matter of “public record in the business press.”

“It’s just that here’s the problem,” said Poillievre. “The public record is clear that they were not moving their headquarters . . . that the company had to stay in Montreal for at least another six years, and when you said on Dec. 19 that the company was moving its headquarters if it didn’t get a DPA, that was two days after the Toronto Star reported that the CEO said the company is ‘committed to remaining headquartered in Montreal.’

“How is it possible that two days earlier the company publicly stated its plans to stay in Montreal, when you told the attorney general the opposite?”

Wernick looked stricken.

OTTAWA, ON – MARCH 06: Canada’s Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick waits to testify before the House of Commons justice committee on Parliament Hill on March 6, 2019 in Ottawa, Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and top aides are accused of meddling in a federal criminal investigation of SNC-Lavalin, a major Candian engineering firm. (Photo by Dave Chan/Getty Images)

It appears more clear than ever that Trudeau, Wernick and Butts weren’t really too concerned about SNC leaving Montreal, they just wanted to do a favour for their corporate pals in SNC, who had lobbied them dozens of times on this issue.

Did SNC voluntarily bring the offence to the “attention of investigative authorities” like the Code requires? No.

Has SNC “made reparations or taken other measures to remedy the harm caused by the act”? Have the Libyan people been paid back the $160 million that SNC gave to prop up former dictator Moammar Gadhafi and his family? No.

Or, “whether the organization — or any of its representatives — is alleged to have committed any other offences?” SNC has a long rap sheet of criminal wrongdoing. All of these criteria disqualifies SNC from being offered a DPA. That’s the law.

Much was made Wednesday by Butts and Wernick that Wilson-Raybould only took 12 days to deliberate following the director of public prosecution’s decision not to seek a DPA in SNC’s case, saying that appeared rushed and flippant toward the 9,000 Canadians across the country who are employed by SNC and who might lose their jobs.

Butts, who came across as quite a nice man, unlike the defensive Wernick, told the committee in the morning, “the attorney general made the final decision after weighing all of the public interest matters involved in just 12 days.”

OTTAWA, ON – MARCH 06: Gerald Butts, former principal secretary to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, leaves after testifying at the House of Commons justice committee on Parliament Hill on March 6, 2019 in Ottawa, Canada. Trudeau and top aides are accused of meddling in a federal criminal investigation of SNC-Lavalin, a major Candian engineering firm. (Photo by Dave Chan/Getty Images

Ottawa trial lawyer Solomon Friedman, however, says most lawyers would have come to the same conclusion to not seek a DPA for SNC after simply reading the provisions of the Criminal Code in a few minutes.

“Twelve days isn’t rushed,” argued Friedman, who was reached in his Ottawa office Wednesday evening. He said even lay people reading the law can conclude pretty quickly that SNC-Lavalin “simply do not meet the criteria.”

Should Wilson-Raybould have taken longer to deliberate, if only to provide the optics that she thoroughly weighed the issue?

“Do you want to live in a country where the attorney general has to pretend to rag the puck just so people won’t criticize her decision-making?” asked Friedman. He also pointed out that the law states if an organization is alleged to have committed an offence under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, “the prosecutor must not consider the national economic interest.”

When Wilson-Raybould upheld the rule of law to direct the DPP on the matter, Trudeau shuffled her out of her AG role and into veterans affairs — which is viewed as a demotion (no disrespect meant to our brave veterans).

Butts revealed that initially she was offered the ministry of Indigenous services, but she turned it down, saying: “she had spent her life opposed to the Indian Act, and couldn’t be in charge of the programs administered under its authority.”

Since this controversy broke with a newspaper report on Feb. 7, Wilson-Raybould resigned from her cabinet post, her good friend, Jane Philpott resigned from her post as president of the Treasury Board, and Butts resigned as Trudeau’s principal secretary. And for the first time in a long while — since Trudeau’s embarrassing and diplomatically damaging trip to India, the Conservative Party is ahead of the ruling Liberals in the opinion polls.

“What this seems to show,” said Friedman, “is that the people who hold the highest offices in Canada don’t care as deeply about the rule of law, and when Canadians lose respect for the rule of law, the international community loses respect for Canada.”

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